Chapter 13

The woods. They were in the woods. Abby and David. They had brought a picnic. Abby had fried chicken, made potato salad, and sliced the chocolate cake her mother had made the day before, piling up generous pieces, since she knew David would like it.

After lunch they dived into the deep pool from the big rocks around the creek where it had dammed up years ago and formed this perfect swimming hole. Then they lay in the sun on side-by-side towels, holding hands until they were scorching, needing another dip.

“Look, Abby. Wait till you see this — look!” David poised, leaning backwards off the highest rock.

“Don’t, David. Don’t jump. You could hit your head,” Abby cautioned, her hand stretched out to him.

“No, I won’t. You worry too much!”

He leaped up, arched, then headed for the water. He was too close to the rock, too close to the bottom rock.

“David, watch out!” Abby cried. She jumped up and reached for him but it was too late. He was going to crash into the rocks.

She stretched out her hand and reached and reached and reached …

Suddenly she sat straight up in bed and screamed. “David!”

He didn’t hit the rock. She was dreaming. She was in her own bed, at Salem University. This was another year. She and David weren’t swimming together. They might not even be going out anymore.

All that flashed through her head before she realized that something else had waked her.

“Something has happened to David,” she whispered. “David is hurt!” She jumped out of bed, wide awake, and started to tug on her jeans and a sweatshirt.

Before she got her tennis shoes laced, there was a pounding on her door. She snapped on the light, no longer worried about waking Carrie. Then, as she dashed to her door to unlock it, she saw that Carrie wasn’t in her bed.

She jerked the door open to find Jerry and Gina in the doorway. “Abby, you have to come with us,” Jerry said urgently.

“What’s wrong?” Abby looked from Jerry to Gina, standing beside him, her face contorted into a mask of worry and concern.

“It’s David.” Gina reached out and took Abby’s arm. “It’s David, Abby. He’s hurt. Get your jacket. It’s raining.” Gina pushed Abby back into her room and towards her closet.

Her jacket wasn’t in the closet. She must have tossed it someplace last night. That didn’t matter now. She grabbed a rain slicker and a yellow, plastic-brimmed hat.

“What happened?” Abby asked. “How bad is he? He’ll be all right, won’t he?” She grabbed Jerry’s arm and swung him around. “Tell me he’ll be all right.”

“They don’t know,” Jerry said. “And we haven’t seen him yet. Sissy called me. She went looking for him, heard him moaning, and found him beside the lake. She said she didn’t know why he’d gone back there. It was the same place the — the beast had attacked her earlier.”

“Maybe he went back to look for clues.” Gina took one of Abby’s arms and Jerry took the other. They steered her towards the stairs, down, out the front door of the Quad, and then towards Gina’s car.

“Where is he?” Abby asked, her legs feeling rubbery. She was glad for Jerry and Gina’s arms. She wasn’t sure she could walk without them holding her up.

“In the hospital.” Gina took the wheel, started the car, backed and swung onto the street. “Sissy called Jerry from there. She needed someone with her.”

Jerry leaned over the backseat, put his hand on Abby’s shoulder, and squeezed it. “You know Sissy, Abby. She probably got hysterical and called an ambulance. They took David to the hospital as a precaution.”

Abby’s mind turned to stone, stone as hard as the rock David was going to crash into in her dream. By the time they reached the hospital and Jerry helped her from the car, she felt numb all over. They steered her into the emergency entrance and up to the desk.

The smell of antiseptic and fear surrounded her. A cart with a sheet-draped figure rattled past her, stern-faced nurses on either side, pushing. She grasped the cold counter as Jerry asked about David.

“We’ve come to see about David Waters,” Jerry told the nurse at Admitting. “He was brought in tonight with — with — He came from the campus. I don’t know what kind of wounds he had.”

The nurse looked at her book. “He’s in surgery. You can’t see him. But you can wait if you like.”

Did she think they were going to turn around and go home? Abby thought. Of course, they’d wait. But Jerry and Gina had to pry her hands off the counter and push her towards an orange plastic chair.

“I wonder where Sissy is?” Gina wondered, looking around.

As reality hit her, Abby wished she could have stayed frozen. Her hands started to shake and she felt as if she were going to throw up.

“I’ll get us some Cokes, Abby.” Jerry stood up, leaving Abby with Gina. “That’ll settle your stomach.”

“Abby, get hold of yourself,” Gina ordered. “We don’t know that David’s hurt bad.”

“He’s in surgery.”

“If that thing scratched him, he may have had to have stitches.”

“They don’t take you to surgery for stitches.” Abby had gotten plenty of stitches in her life. She had been clumsy even as a child.

Two police officers followed Jerry back into the reception room.

“What did you do, Jerry?” Gina whispered. “Steal the Cokes?” She took the red can Jerry handed her.

Jerry looked around and grinned. “Hey, I paid for them,” he told the officers. “You’re following the wrong guy.”

Leave it to Jerry to keep his sense of humor no matter what was happening, Abby thought.

The dark-skinned police officer smiled and took off his hat. “I’m ready to ask you to go steal me one, too, son. This has been a busy night. Two car wrecks — now this.” He sat beside them, motioning his partner to pull up a chair. “I understand David Waters is your friend.”

“Yes.” Abby nodded. “Do you know anything about David? Is he all right? Will he be all right?”

“I can’t answer that right now, but I’ll try to find out for you,” said Officer Mooney, who introduced himself and Officer Rodgers, his partner.

“What do you know about this — this — beast that Sissy King said attacked her tonight, and David later?”

Officer Rodgers filled in as much as he knew. “We think some crazed animal jumped David. He was all scratched up. His arm is broken, but he could have fallen on it when this thing jumped him.”

“But Miss King called it a monster and said this wasn’t the first time it had attacked someone.” Mooney took out a notebook.

Abby looked at Jerry. “No one has been hurt badly before,” she said. “We’ve thought it was a joke, a fraternity prank, or someone trying to scare us.”

What did she mean, trying?

“Why hasn’t anyone called us before?” Rodgers wanted to know.

“Officer,” Jerry said, his face serious for a change. “What would you have done if someone had called and said there was a monster attacking people at Salem University? That a pledge for Sigma Chi was attacked while spending the night at the Peabody ruins for his hazing? That I was jumped while I was cutting through the woods at about four A.M. one night?”

Rodgers looked at Mooney, who grinned. “Well —” Mooney started to say.

“Exactly.” Jerry stopped him. “You would never have believed us. This is the first time someone has really been hurt.”

“And now you think it’s an animal?” Abby reminded them.

Rodgers studied Gina, Jerry, and Abby. “You three look to be eighteen or nineteen. Do you still believe in monsters under the bed?”

“The monster was in the woods,” Gina said with a straight face. “Not under our beds or in our closets, Officer. We’ve told you all we know. Call it whatever you like, but it would seem like you should investigate it before it kills someone.”

Mooney looked at Rodgers and the two of them stood up.

“I’ll report to you as soon as we know your friend’s condition,” Mooney said.

“Thank you,” Abby said. “That’s kind of you. And can we see him?”

“That’s not up to us.” Officer Rodgers took off for the reception desk. Mooney touched his hat with the tips of his fingers, smiled at Abby, and followed his partner.

“The secret is out.” Jerry leaned back and sipped his Coke.

Gina picked up an old copy of People magazine. A smiling Willard Scott stared at Abby from the TV screen in the corner. Gina flipped the pages without looking at them. “Surely they’ll believe David’s story.”

No one said, if David can tell them. Abby wadded a tissue up in one fist and gripped the cold Coke can with the other.

About an hour passed with no news and no sign of Sissy. If she had called Jerry wanting company, where was she now?

Gina curled up on an empty couch and dozed off. Jerry flipped through magazine after magazine. Abby couldn’t seem to focus on anything. She watched the busy emergency room crew come and go and wondered about all the other lives unfolding around them. Anything to keep from focusing on her own. Or David’s.

Her heart leaped though, when she spotted Officer Mooney, face grim, walking towards her.